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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26744008">The DoctorDonna Returns</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/shnuffeluv/pseuds/shnuffeluv'>shnuffeluv</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Doctor Who (2005)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Childhood, Donna Finds Lee McAvoy, Donna Goes on Her Own Adventures, Donna Noble Remembers, F/M, Love, Marriage, Pregnancy, The Doctor &amp; Donna Noble Friendship, because those two deserve to be happy together dang it</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 11:15:27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,303</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26744008</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/shnuffeluv/pseuds/shnuffeluv</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Donna keeps seeing a strange man with a blue box in her dreams. One day, she decides she will build this box, and life only gets crazy from there.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Lee McAvoy/Donna Noble</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Fic In A Box</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The DoctorDonna Returns</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/gwenynnefydd/gifts">gwenynnefydd</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> Donna wasn't sure why she wasn't sleeping well. Every night, her dreams were plagued by a man in a blue box, smiling at her. She and this man would go on wild adventures, seeing all the universe had to offer. And oftentimes, she would wake up crying with a massive headache. She woke up early from it one morning, and decided to sketch what this box looked like. At first it was just the shape, but then she got more ideas the more she sketched it out. She wasn't a super amazing artist, but she worked at the sketch, and then added another idea, and another, and soon she had ten pages of different ideas, all part of this blue box that plagued her dreams. She stared at the papers in confusion. She didn't know why, but these felt more like memories than dreams to her.</p><p>Shrugging it off for now, she got ready for work for the day. She sighed as she went to the same boring job, with the same boring life. She wished she could do something more than just temp work. Even something permanent wasn't satisfying when she looked through jobs. She wanted to travel the world, and see all it had to offer her.</p><p>She worked, but her mind kept travelling to those sketches at home, and she resolved that she would try and figure out what was bothering her so much about the papers. Something about it was calling to her, and she wanted to know what it was.</p><p>When she got home, she looked through the papers and realized that she could build most of what she was seeing through tools she could get at an appliance store. She went out and bought what she'd need for one of the pieces, and almost without thinking, put it together. It was strange. She had never considered herself much of a handyman, but it was like her hands were moving without instruction. When the piece was done, she looked at it, frowning. This warranted more looking into.</p><p>She got more dreams, and with each day she grew more and more obsessed with building whatever this thing from her dreams was. She couldn't understand it, not all of it, but in her dreams, the man would talk with her sometimes. "You don't remember, do you?" he asked her one day.</p><p>"No," Donna said, frowning. "I want to, though."</p><p>"If you do remember, it could kill you," the man warned her.</p><p>Donna shrugged. "Curiosity may have killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back, didn't it?" she asked.</p><p>"I worry about you, Donna," the man said.</p><p>"You shouldn't, Doctor. I can handle myself," she said.</p><p>She woke up that morning in tears. She felt at her face and frowned. Why did she call that man Doctor? And why did the room they were in call to her so much?</p><p>That was it. She needed answers. So that day, she quit her job, bought everything she needed to finish this box, and started working on it day and night in her flat.</p><p>Of course, word got out to her mother, and she came around knocking. "Donna, what do you think you're doing?" her mother asked when Donna opened the door. "You just up and quit your job, and you're not going back to the agency?"</p><p>Donna shrugged. "I just...don't think that it's for me, Mum," she said.</p><p>Her mother got a glance behind her into Donna's flat and she paled. "What do you have in there?!" she asked, voice going alarmingly soft.</p><p>"I don't really know, yet," Donna admitted. "I've been seeing it in my dreams and I decided I was going to build it."</p><p>"Is <em>this</em> why you quit your job?!" her mother asked.</p><p>"No!" Donna lied. "It's just a pet project, Mum, it's nothing."</p><p>"I want you to stop it this instant!" her mother said. "Throw it in the bin, sell it, I don't care. But I need you to go back to the agency and find a job, just until you figure out what you want to do!"</p><p>"Mum—"</p><p>"—I'm not debating this, Donna!" her mother snapped, and Donna was taken aback. Her mother never snapped, not like this. "You need to go back to your job, and abandon this project, whatever it is!"</p><p>Donna stood there silently as her mother stormed away. She closed the door and turned to the box. She couldn't abandon it. It was an obsession at this point.</p><p>She continued to work on it, day in and day out. Her mother came knocking a few times, but Donna always pretended she wasn't home, or just flat-out ignored her. It was when her grandfather came around that she caved and opened the door. "What do you want, Gramps?" she asked with a resigned sigh.</p><p>"Your mum's worried about you," he said.</p><p>"When isn't she?" Donna asked.</p><p>"She said you were building something in here. Can I see it?" Wilf asked.</p><p>Donna nodded and stepped back, allowing her grandfather entry. He walked in and looked at what she was building, and he had shock and admiration in his eyes. "Where did you come up with this?" he asked.</p><p>"It kept coming to me in a dream," Donna said. "I had to draw it, and then I realized I'd be able to build it if I really wanted to. It cost a pretty penny but..."</p><p>"It's beautiful," Gramps said, running a hand over the dark blue wood. "What are you going to do with it?"</p><p>"I don't know yet," Donna admitted, tilting her head to the side.</p><p>Gramps looked at her. "I bet you could sell it for a good price," he said.</p><p>"No, I don't think I'd sell it," she said. "I might use it to travel."</p><p>Her grandfather frowned, and Donna could see worry in his eyes. "Travel? How would you travel in a wooden box?"</p><p>"I don't know," Donna admitted. "That's just what comes to mind when I try to think of what I would do with it."</p><p>Her grandfather shrugged. "Well, I wish you luck with it, Donna. I'll try to keep your mum off your back, all right? You just take care of yourself."</p><p>"Always, Gramps," she said, hugging him.</p><p>He hugged her back close, and Donna thought it odd how he was almost cradling her, like she might break if he did one thing wrong.</p><p>Donna worked on the box until it was finished, late in the night, and as soon as she was done, she collapsed into bed.</p><p>When she opened her eyes, she was back in the yellow room with the man she had called Doctor. "You built it," he said in shock. "I'm surprised."</p><p>"I couldn't help myself," she said. "I want so much more than my human life right now."</p><p>He looked worried. "I think I came up with a way to return your memories," he said. "But I can't keep you travelling with me. My time is almost up."</p><p>"My memories?" Donna asked. "What do you mean?"</p><p>The Doctor put his fingers to her temple and she was bombarded with images. Of the TARDIS, the Ood, the Daleks, everything. And while her head hurt like it did in the mornings, she wasn't dying. She could retain the memories. When she returned to herself, she saw the Doctor putting away some device that must have helped her retain her memories and her life. She smiled at the Doctor. "Hello, again," she said softly.</p><p>"Hello," he said, grinning, and god, had she missed that grin. "How are you feeling?"</p><p>"Better than I have in a long time," she admitted.</p><p>"Wake up," he told her. "I'll be admiring your handiwork in your living room."</p><p>"What, you're breaking into my flat?" she asked.</p><p>"It's not like that," he sighed.</p><p>"I know," she said with a cheeky grin.</p><p>The Doctor smiled at her and she opened her eyes, flinging the blankets off her, eager to see the Doctor again. He was standing there, hands trailing over the wood. "You really did it," he breathed, before turning to her with a grin. "Hello, Doctor-Donna. I'm happy I got to see you through to the end of this."</p><p>"What did you mean, when you said that your time was almost up?" she asked, smiling dimming some.</p><p>"I'm about to regenerate," the Doctor admitted. "I wanted to give you your memory back if at all possible before that, but I'm dying."</p><p>The smile slipped off Donna's face. "I'll miss you," she told him.</p><p>"Me too," he said with a melancholy smile. He turned to her TARDIS shell. "Tell you what, though, she's beautiful. You did a better job than I ever could," he said. "All you need is the pocket dimension to complete her." He pulled a small, white, glowing cube out of his pocket. "Care to do the honors?"</p><p>She grinned, taking the cube from his hand. She opened the door to her TARDIS, her very own TARDIS, and put the cube in the container built into the back of the box. A glowing bright light surrounded her, before everything snapped into place, complete with a console that would allow her to travel the universe. "I love it," she said, looking at the Doctor with a grin.</p><p>He smiled at her, before bending over with a groan and a wince. "I don't have much longer," he said.</p><p>"It's okay," Donna said, putting her hand on her cheek. "It's going to be okay, I promise you."</p><p>"How can you know?" he asked her, desperation and pleading in his eyes.</p><p>"Because it's you," she said with a smile. "You'll always be the Doctor. Maybe you'll have a different face, different mannerisms, but you'll be you. You'll fight for good, for justice, for the people who others consider unimportant. You'll always be that man."</p><p>"I wasn't before," he said, a few tears slipping down his cheeks.</p><p>"And you swore never again," she said. "And I trust you to uphold that promise."</p><p>He smiled at her. "Promise me that you'll never change," he told her with a smile.</p><p>"I promise," she said, smiling at him and giving him a gentle hug.</p><p>He smiled at her and walked back to his own TARDIS. "Farewell, Donna Noble," he said. "You were...fantastic."</p><p>"As were you," she said to him.</p><p>He closed the doors to his TARDIS and it phased out of her apartment. She went to her own TARDIS and considered where she could go. The entire universe at her fingertips, and all the time in the world to see it. First things first, though. She went to the yard behind Gramp's house that night. She opened the door to find him staring at the box in shock. "I got it to work," she told him with a grin. "Do you want to travel with me?"</p><p>"Donna?" he asked in shock.</p><p>"The Doctor figured it out. I won't get hurt by the memories. I remember it all. And now I have my very own TARDIS to travel in. Do you want to travel with me?"</p><p>"Of course!" Gramps said. "Should we bring your mother?"</p><p>"Provided she doesn't go mental knowing that I have this, sure," she said.</p><p>Her mother ran up the hill, jaw dropped. "Donna?" she asked.</p><p>"The Doctor figured it out," she said with a grin. "I'm going travelling with Gramps. Do you want to come with?"</p><p>Her mother just stared at her in shock. "Isn't it dangerous?" she asked.</p><p>"That's half the fun, the unknown," she told her mother. "Do you want to come?"</p><p>Her mother shook her head subtly. "Someone has to make sure you come home one day," she said. "And someone has to make sure no one files a police report with you going missing."</p><p>Donna laughed. "All right, Mum. That's your choice," she said simply. "Come on, Gramps, let's go!"</p><p>Her grandfather followed her into the TARDIS, and he looked around with wonder. "She's beautiful," he said.</p><p>"She is," Donna said. She touched the console lovingly. "And she's all mine."</p><p>"The Doctor, did he look like he used to when he saw you?" Wilf asked.</p><p>"Yes," she said. "But he was minutes away from regenerating. I don't expect we'll see him with the same face again in the universe."</p><p>"But we might see him with a different face?" Gramps asked.</p><p>Donna shrugged. "Anything is possible, Gramps."</p><p>Her grandfather smiled at her. "Have you gone anywhere yet? Your mother went around to yours and saw the box and you gone, and assumed the worst."</p><p>"No, I just finished it and travelled here," she said. "I wanted to wait to travel with you."</p><p>He smiled at her. "How about we go somewhere warm?" he asked. "I'd love to have a holiday somewhere warm."</p><p>"Somewhere warm, coming up!" she exclaimed, going to the controls and pushing and pulling all the levers she needed to, before heading to the lever to send them careening through space and time. "Care to do the honors with me?" she asked.</p><p>Gramps smiled and walked over with her, pulling the lever. The TARDIS whirred to life and they looked at each other with barely contained excitement. "This is going to be fun," she said with a grin.</p><p>Gramps just looked at her with pride. "I knew you'd love this if you had your memories," he said. "I'm glad the Doctor found a way to restore them."</p><p>Donna smiled. "So am I."</p><p>The TARDIS flew to a stop and they stepped out on a planet that neither of them had either seen before. Donna knew virtually everything about it as soon as she stepped out, however. "Planet Daisy," she said. "It was named such by public vote by the people of Iceland. Bit of an odd name, but it's plenty warm, and we can set up at the beach just a couple blocks that way," she pointed. "The Doctor knew all this, for some reason. Not that I'm complaining. I love the beach."</p><p>They made their way there after Donna locked the TARDIS and they took a stroll on the beach. "I'm the one who killed the Doctor," Gramps whispered after a time.</p><p>"What?" Donna asked.</p><p>"I got trapped in a radiation chamber, and he got me out, at the cost of flooding his body with the radiation," Gramps said, tearing up. "I'm the reason he's dead."</p><p>"He's not dead, Gramps, he's just in a different form now," Donna said, putting a hand on Gramps' shoulder. "He certainly doesn't blame you. And at the end of the day, he'll have the same principles, even if he acts different. We might be able to find him and talk to him at some point, if you'd like?"</p><p>"I'd appreciate that, Donna, but knowing the Doctor, what are the odds that we're going to find him searching for him?" Gramps asked with a laugh.</p><p>"You're right," Donna said with a small smile. "So we'll explore the stars together, and if we happen across him, we'll let him tell us. Because we probably won't recognize him."</p><p>"Sounds like a plan," Gramps said with a smile.</p><p>They went swimming in the ocean and stayed on the beach for hours, before retreating back to the TARDIS. A little wandering found them with bedrooms to themselves, and Gramps appreciated the chance to sleep. Donna went to her own room and slept soundly. She was a little saddened when she woke up and realized the Doctor hadn't visited her in her dreams last night. He must have finally regenerated.</p><p>She couldn't get out of bed for a while after that realization. She cried, mourning the loss of her best friend. Because while the Doctor would always be the Doctor, that regeneration was well and gone.</p><p>Gramps came to her and eventually coaxed her out of bed for tea and toast. They sat in the console room together in companionable silence. "What would you say to bringing other people along in our adventures?" she asked.</p><p>"I'd say that would be nice," Gramps said. "After all, I'm not going to live forever, or be able to do everything you can do. It would be nice for you to have someone more your speed."</p><p>"Don't speak like that, Gramps," Donna said. "I'll have you with me as long as you want me, understand?"</p><p>"Okay," Gramps said, smiling.</p><p>The two of them traversed the universe, and Donna found where the people from the library had been taken to. She wanted to see if any of her friends from the computer had been real. She saw a few of them and smiled at them, giving them hugs and saying how happy she was to have seen them. One voice, however, took her off-guard. "Donna!" he exclaimed.</p><p>Her heart leapt into her throat. She turned, and there he was. Lee McAvoy, the man she had fallen in love with. Tears sprang to her eyes and she ran to him, wrapping him in a hug. "How are you?!" she asked in disbelief. "I thought you were just part of the computer!"</p><p>"No," he said with a laugh. "I saw you leaving the library with a man. He your husband?"</p><p>"God, no!" she exclaimed with a laugh. "Just a friend. But if you want to get to know me better, I have a time machine, I'm travelling with my Gramps. You can come with me.</p><p>He laughed. "God, want me to meet your parents already?" he asked. "Sounds like fun, Donna. Why don't you introduce me?"</p><p>She smiled, dragging him over to where Gramps was looking on, confused. "Wilfred Mott," he said, sticking his hand out to shake.</p><p>"Lee McAvoy," he said. "Donna and I met on some of her previous travels."</p><p>"Ah," Gramps said, like that explained everything. Though Donna could tell he was still confused.</p><p>"He's a good man, Gramps," she said with a smile. "I'd like him to travel with us, if you're okay with that."</p><p>"If he makes you happy, then he's more than welcome," Gramps said with a smile and a nod at Lee.</p><p>Together, the three of them went on the TARDIS. They travelled through space and time, crashing parties, solving mysteries, getting to see people who Lee would geek about but Donna had never heard of. Gramps loved seeing the sights of different planets, and nebulae, and he loved getting to sit on the edge of the TARDIS, just watching the universe go by.</p><p>Lee became close to Donna again quickly. Technically they weren't married in the eyes of the law, but neither of them cared and they bickered like a married couple anyway. All in good fun, of course. They went to all sorts of planets, trying to figure out where they might want their wedding to be. At the end of the day, they went to Gramps' hill, and Gramps officiated while Donna's mother watched. Lee was rather intimidated by her at first, but soon enough Donna's mother seemed to like Lee more than she liked Donna sometimes. Donna teased her for that, but at the end of the day, she didn't take it to heart. After all, she loved Lee too. She couldn't blame her mother for liking him, especially when he didn't argue with her as much as Donna did.</p><p>The three of them kept travelling the universe, Gramps slowly losing some of his mobility but still as sharp as ever. One day, he came to Donna and Lee, who were sitting in the console room, and said, "I don't think I can keep going around with you two. You're both faster than I could ever hope to be, and I want the two of you to be happy, and not worry about me trailing behind you."</p><p>"You don't have to go if you don't want to, Gramps," Donna said, feeling her heart ache. She knew that Gramps had been struggling, but she didn't want to admit it to herself.</p><p>"Never you mind about me, Donna," he said. "So long as you visit me often, I'll be okay. Once a month at least, got it?"</p><p>She nodded, tears in her eyes as she hugged him tight. Lee hugged him to and said, "It won't be the same without you, sir. Thank you for travelling with us."</p><p>They dropped him off on Earth and looked at each other uncertainly when they had gone back into the time vortex. "I don't know what to do now," Donna said. "It feels...empty without him."</p><p>"We'll find something to do, I'm sure," Lee said, brushing her hair out of her face and kissing her tenderly.</p><p>The two of them did find ways to keep busy. Donna took up painting and Lee collected all kinds of books that they displayed proudly in the console room. They had shared a bedroom for years at this point, and Donna belatedly realized as she finished painting that she had missed her last period. She dashed to the console room, startling Lee out of his book. "What?! What's wrong?!"</p><p>"We need to find a doctor," Donna said.</p><p>"Why?! Are you hurt?!" Lee asked, looking her over.</p><p>"I don't think so," she said, looking at him with wide, hopeful eyes. "In fact, if I'm right, this will be the best news of our life."</p><p>Lee looked at her doubtfully, but when they got to a hospital at New New York, and Donna requested a pregnancy test, Lee understood. Well, he just about fainted first, but once he realized what was going on he was chattering non-stop. How they'd make a nursery in the TARDIS, about how they could find the best education in all of time and space for the little kid, and how he could hardly bear the wait, or the excitement. When the test came back positive, Donna beamed and Lee cried. "I can't believe it," Donna said. "I just...can't believe it!"</p><p>Lee kissed her and she kissed back, and as they walked back to the TARDIS, it was all plans about the new kid, and how they were going to tell her mother and Gramps, and all. They worked happily side-by-side to make a nursery in the TARDIS, and they made sure that Donna didn't strain herself too much. After all, this might be their only chance at a kid, and while neither were planning on having children, now that it was a possibility they wanted to take care, just in case.</p><p>They told Gramps and her mother the very next visit. Gramps cried and made them promise to bring the tyke when they were born, and her mother gave both Donna and Lee a big hug when she heard.</p><p>Nine months passed slowly and in a blink all at once. Donna had regular appointments at New New York, and at the turn of the fifty second century, Hannah Catherine McAvoy was born.</p><p>"She's beautiful," Lee breathed, looking at the baby in his arms, and then at Donna. "She's just like you."</p><p>"Don't be ridiculous," Donna scoffed. "She obviously looks so gorgeous because she takes after you."</p><p>Lee smiled and the two of them took her to the TARDIS when they were discharged, watching her in the nursery for a while before heading home.</p><p>Donna and Lee brought the bundle in to see her grandmother and great-grandfather, and instantly Donna and Lee knew that she would be spoiled by her grandparents. Hopefully not spoiled <em>rotten,</em> but spoiled nonetheless.</p><p>And as she grew up, Donna saw more and more of herself and Lee in her, but also the Doctor as well. Hannah fought for kindness, and justice, and for the underdog. She was someone that Donna would be proud to introduce to the Doctor. She learned all her schooling in the sixty seventh century, because Lee wanted her to be able to be whoever she wanted, and women's equality was unbelievable to Donna <em>and</em> Lee in the sixty seventh century. Hannah loved getting to pull the lever on the TARDIS for them to fly when she was old enough.</p><p>As she grew, Donna knew that she wouldn't live forever. She was starting to understand how her mother and Gramps had felt when adventuring in the TARDIS. But she talked to the TARDIS about passing her on to Hannah, and the TARDIS was overjoyed at the thought of travelling with Hannah for as long as Hannah was able to.</p><p>Hannah was an adult in the blink of an eye, and Donna proudly passed over the keys to her on her eighteenth birthday. "But?" she asked in confusion. "This is your home, Mum. Yours and Dads. I don't want to take that away from you."</p><p>"We'll still travel with you for as long as you have us, Hannah," Donna said. "But you're an adult, it's high time that you learned how to pilot the TARDIS and what you want to do with your life."</p><p>Hannah clutched the keys close to her chest. "I don't know what to say," she said.</p><p>"Just promise me one thing," Donna said. "If Dad and I aren't travelling with you anymore, and you come across a man, or a woman, who calls themselves The Doctor, tell them about me. Tell them about me and Lee and yourself and how we all lived. Because he deserves to know that he may as well have saved my life, with what he did."</p><p>"He's...a friend of yours?" Hannah asked.</p><p>"He was my best friend, a long time ago," Donna said with a smile. "And he saved me from being stuck in the twenty first century all my life. I owe him everything. Promise me you'll tell him."</p><p>"I will, Mum," Hannah promised.</p><p>"Well, then," Donna said with a smile. "You're the TARDIS pilot now. Where do you want to go?"</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Any and all comments welcome!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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